I'm totally fed up

I just quit my job at EB over this sort of stuff happening in my store. The manager, and the two assistant managers all quit, and the store has gone a direction I really don’t like. The assistant managers were actually both very caring people who once were managers themselves. They decided to step down and take it easy an assistant, because they couldn’t stand the bureaucracy.

They brought a new guy in, who is a nice guy, but also very much a lapdog to his corporate overlords. I probably would be too if I had to do this for a career thing. As it is right now I don’t want to slap people across the face with sales shtik.

I heard the new boss offer a guy Magna Carta 4+ times in a row the other day. This guy very clearly said that he’d read reviews and played the demo. He didn’t like the gameplay. The boss kept pushing it none-the-less, because it was pre-played.

In addition to just the poor new environment I’m splitting, because I’m headed off to college and I have a job that pays $12-15 an hour offered to me. So, It’s not totally due to the way we’re forced to treat customers, but also for some personal interests.

EB was a great store to work at when I was with a team of people that actually had the same mindset. They cared about whether or not customers were satisfied, more than sales numbers. It’s completely reversed now.

Personally, I think the upper-management of the company is fubarred, and things are getting more fubarred with this merger. People must be getting nervous about their jobs and making more mistakes. I’ve seen plenty.

Don’t get me wrong, the guy you spoke with sounds like a dolt, but he gets paid to be a dolt. They don’t pay their workforce well enough to get a good one. The only time you’ll find it, is if a silly person like myself, gets attached to the job because of the other people who work there. When you work with a lapdog barking orders at you, there’s no motivation. You get nothing for it, and really it’s just stressful and tiring.

They had incentives before, and they removed them. I’ve put in my two weeks, and I dread going to work. Once upon a time, it was something to look forward to :)

Yes, the people who work in your local EB store have everything to do with whether it’s a good place to shop. The corporation itself does nothing to encourage the “right” kind of people to work there.

The thing that I love about Fry’s is the commercial purity of the experience: They don’t really give a crap about me, but they want to sell me something. I don’t really give a crap about them, but I want to buy something. Both sides acknowledge this, which lets us both get on with the essential business of allowing me to waste my money on electronics and games.

I’ve never seen that. Best case, it was the same price in both places, but I’ve never seen it cheaper in that EB. Speaking of, how long have you been going there? I stopped shopping at that one sometime in 2002, because of an asshole manager, of all things.
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You’ve not shopped there in three years? Well, that explains much. I’ve been going there since the store opened - it was such a relief to not have to go to Compucentre anymore, who were usually arseholes - and have always found the EB staff friendly and reasonable.

Gameshack is a great store, but sometimes EB undercuts them. I recommend checking both stores before purchasing; they’re only a minute walk from each other underground.

I’ll second the Pico and Lincoln recommendation. I work within walking distance of the Howard Hughes one, and I prefer not to go there.

There is a small but well-stocked GameStop at Fox Hills Mall across the freeway from the Hughes center, if you’re in the neighborhood and need to buy a game.

The two EBs and Gamestops near me are staffed by gamers. I never haven any problems with them. They do try to push the strat guides on me when I buy, but I say no and that’s it.

I’ve been in others and they generally seem to attract game players as employees. I’m a bit surprised at the negative anecdotes.

I have seen—and heard—this in action. They may be tittering like Bambi and Thumper but what they’re muttering would make Dungsroman blush. Guys are the awesomest.

drooling, pimply twats

I’m about to eat dinner, thank you.

Yeah, Fry’s is awesome. It’s like a vacuum cleaner attached to my wallet. :)

They actually stock PC games too. Whole aisles of them! Even semi-obscure ones, and give them front facings! It’s like paradise.

It’s just too bad they aren’t as close as the local EB, and sometimes don’t get stuff for a day or two later.

For me games have started to break down into two categories:

  1. Things I want the instant they are available. I usually grit my teeth and go to the local EB for these because I can preorder them and the local EB isn’t too horrible.

  2. Everything else. Nowadays I wind up ordering most of this online via Amazon to get the inherent Amazon credit card discount. But often I will just let a few titles stack up and swing by Fry’s or Best Buy (I like Fry’s much better, but Best Buy is more convenient for lunch trips).

One way to get rid of the glue residue left after peeling off these stickers is duct tape or good masking tape-- just stick a bit of the tape on the case over the gunk, holding onto one end of the tape strip, and pull it off quickly, over and over. Each time the tape will pick up a bit more of the gunk, and eventually the gunk will all be stuck to the tape instead of the case. Stickers suck.

I was in EB a few weeks ago. I just wanted to buy Stubbs the Zombie for the pc. The guy was very clear that it wasn’t made for the pc and I was confused. Never mind the fact that there were 5 copies sitting behind him. After 5 minutes of convincing him to turn around, he casually said they were jus display copies. Display copies for a game that didn’t exist??? Took me around 15 minutes to get him to pick it off the shelf and ring it up. Amazing.

Ehhh… I haven’t been to gameshack in a few months (left toronto at the end of august) but probably half the time I went to buy something I’d compare between EB and gameshack, and gameshack was either cheaper or same price.

I am, however, talking about new titles. Perhaps with used games they are more expensive, I don’t know.

But that asshole manager was there when the EB opened, until about a year after the fact, I’d guess. Give or take. I’d still stop by, but mostly when I was accompanying friends or buying games that gameshack didn’t have (which did happen on occasion).

And yeah, the compucentre was a waste of time. They did, however, get MGS2 before anywhere else downtown when it came out. So I’ll give them that!